He Got the Package.....

yesh yesh I finally got the package! thank you so much for that, I was not expecting stuff that nice, and thank you mom for the recipe, we made snickerdoodles this week, me and elder England, and we gave one to lucas, who is a recent convert and he said ¨waaaa que es eso?! es muy rico!¨ so they turned out good.  

So this is what happened with the package, I asked the secrataries how to get it, and they´re my  homies so they hooked me up with the inside scoop and gave me permission to change our p-day from saturday to monday for that one week, now we are back on saturdays. But they gave me my passport because I needed it and I emailed you guys for the receipt because I would need it. Thank you by the way for sending that so fast. So we got to ride with the assistants to what is called, ciudad vieja, or the old city. We found the place and went inside and the assistants told me that it would cost 60 dollars plus 60 percent of the total value of the box. So I brought all my money, but we got there, they asked to see my passport and my receipt brought me my box and told me to go. For freeeeeee. sounds good to meeeeee. But they did tell me to tell you that I am not alowed to receive any shampoos or deoderants or any hygiene kind of gell or liquid. So that made me really happy. Then we had lunch with the assistant in tres cruzes. Which is a huge mall here. Its in the other mission but we were with the assistants so we were ok. So anyways, thank you very much for the package, and thank you aaron for putting the songs on, and yes I can tell it was aaron who put them on from the songs that are on there. haha Yes yes, I am loved. 

but this week we got sooo much done, we have some really good investigators. Paula and raul, sandra, diego, and sergio. Paula and Raul are a pair that are living together and paula wants to get baptized sooooo bad, everytime we visit she tells us she is ready to be baptized, and raul isn´t so much excited but still wants to, but they´re not married..... yesh sooooo we had a long lession with them about this. Paula wants to get married but raul, doesn´t, so we told them to talk about it and to pray and we will visit them later this afternoon to see how it went. We are praying that they came to the decision to be married. 

Then we have Sandra, who has Parkingsons and Diebetes. So she is suffering alot. She has a date to be baptized a week from today and she has had all of the lessions. Totally ready, but two days ago we had taught all the lessions except for one, tithing. She is very poor and we had made plans to visit her and teach her the law of the tithe, but the morning of the lession she texted us and said that because she cant work, because of the sicknesses, she doesn´t have money to support her family, she cant buy food, they´re living off of donated food from neighbors and her kids dont have clothes to wear to school. This worried us alot, but we felt like somehow we still had to teach her that paying her tithing was vitally important. We went and taught the lession and everything turned out great, turned out she had a bad idea about tithing because she was assisting another church, The Universal Church, (sooo currupt) that asks for a minimum tithe on certain days that needs to be paid or basically her salvation is on the line. But all went good and now she is ready for baptism, and we visit her this afternoon as well. 

We are still working on opertation: Clean up Sergio. He told us yesterday that he promised he would pray and try to stop drinking and smoking. We prayed with him for help, and he said he would only drink one fourth of a liter and smoke only two cigarretes before sunday. Its progress. When we found him he was a drunken bum, or as they say here, a pichi. Diego is a kid, he knows its all true but hes just nervous and he isn´t sure he is ready for baptism, he has a date to be baptized this next week as well, but its very tentative. We are preparing to do an open-house at the church in the up coming weeks, and to invite people we are getting the whole ward on board. As well as visiting the local ferias, which are the open air markets that sell fruits, veggies and fish, and we are handing out invites like crazy. Thats our backup plan when people reject us in the streets, we just have an invite in hand and basically throw these little bad boys at them before they get away. Its gunna be great. We are really excited for this coming week. 

Elder England and the assistants are awesome. We never really have any problems and the time is just flying down here. The members are really helpful too, with the open house coming up and with the lunches, like yesteday we had this really good pizza from a members pizza shop, ooooo yesh, because there is huge italian influence here we get lots of pastas and pizzas. I´m not complaining. Carrasco is the place to be right now. But its good here, and changes are coming up, I hope I dont go. 

Thank you very much for the package and everything and thank you mariah for your letter and the stamps! I will probably be writing home this p-day if I have time. 

Loves, 

Elder Webber

P.S.  My haircut and the "Left-overs" :-)

It Rains a lot in Uruguay!

Yesh, so this week was rough, we worked it hard and the weather is slowly changing to colder and colder everyday.  We have a few really good investigators who are sooooo intune with the spirit. Sandra, who lives in acosta y lara, the poor area, who we put a date to baptized on mothers day for the 31st. and has parkingsons and diebetes. She told us she wanted to get baptized as soon as possible, but we kinda need to postpone her baptism a few week so she can clear up some stuff in her life and is really ready. Then we have Sergio, a man with alot of question number 4 problems. 
For those of you who know the question number 4 Aaron and pops and josh. So we will spend a good couple weeks doing what we call, operation clean up Sergio. He told us he woke up on sunday and , ¨something told me to go to church¨ hes really cool, but hard to find time to talk because he has to work all day everyday, almost exactly our hours of proseliting. Then we have Paula and Raul, who need to get married, but they are ready for baptism and told us that ¨we dont open our doors to strangers, but when you talked to us in the street we just felt like we should. We challenged them to be baptized and they accepted. We will get them married in a month or two. It was a hard week. We worked worked worked, and alot of the investigators didnt come to church. Which is frustrating. 
We went to the feria the other day. its like an open market, bought some fruits for really cheap and handed out cards. We are making alot of baked goods, like brownies and cookies and stuff, so this week we spent alot of money on that. Its all good here though. I got mariahs letter and I will be writing some home this week or the next week. Pretty crazy with graduation coming up, ben will be a senior and mariah will be going to timpanogos, timpanogos rise above them all, on the move and bound for glory always proud and tall, timpanogos timpanogos on to victory, go, green blue and white, we´ll fight and win with might, its timpanogos timberwolves. bum bum che bum bum che T H S the best.Good times, 
I could use a snickerdoodle recipe. Thank you for the receipt I will go get that today. 

Love 

Elder Webber

Mother's Day "Chat"

Was great to see him--he looks so happy...  Here's some pics and his quick notes prior to:

Working hard and not too much happened this week but I suppose that I can explain it all tomorrow. But If you could email me a few things like, a recipe for snickerdoodles, and my priesthood line of authority. Yesh, I know pops gave me a paper but that is one of the things that I forgot to pack. Anyways, I will see you guys tomorrow. Heres a few photos of the "rich part" of the area.

and us folding an american flag and whistling the national anthem in the house of a convert

New Area's Going Well...

And no mom, I cannot give the ladies a ¨huge hug¨ for you. thats kinda against the rules, but I will tell them thank you. This week was good, I dont know if I already told you, but everybody looks to this area as one of the difficult areas in the mission. Even my old ward mission leader from the last area told me ¨well that sucks¨ he was kinda a jerk, didnt work well with us and he was a canadian, so that explains it all. 

But we got here, found a bunch of people put 3 baptismal dates this week and we are progressing like crazy. The members here work really hard with us, and the mission leader is always coming to charlas with us. Im seeing more success here than I was in Autodromo, my last area. Also, we have the Mission president and his family in our ward, its just awesome, perfect circumstances to really just hit it hard. We also have the other mission´s president in our ward, Double mission president. It helps alot. My companion is awesome, works super hard. We´re really focused and determined to baptize alot this month. 

Yesterday we had intercambios, I went with Elder Tucker, from bountiful, chubby short elder. Hes really funny and used to play rugby, his area is more or less dead, so we just spent the day street contacting, and knocking doors, which is the last resort, it was long, but still fun because we got along really good. 

Other than that, not a whole lot happened this week. Our house is really clean, it actually has three stories, but nobody goes in the basement, its super creepy and I havent gone in yet, its really dirty, like dirt dirty, just filled with junk and spiders. 

We work out really hard in the mornings and p days we work out hard too. So I feel really healthy, I guess you guys will see in about a week. seems like just last month it was christmas time and we were skyping. 

Elder Webber

Our new House "has a wooden floor and everything!"

P day on saturday now! So bunches happened the last 4 days. I packed up all my stuff and we went to changes. All four of us from our house got on the ¨change bus¨ and came to the offices for changes. Normal changes, a big meeting with the assistants and president and what not, find our new companion in all the busy hustle and bustle. Got to see my trainer again, he said my spanish had gotten better. Got to see all my buddies from the CCM, MTC. It was cool. Anyways, found my companion, Elder England, hes from sandy utah, blonde hair, blue eyed, hitlers dream. Looks like a nazi and we give him trouble for that. So we met, helped the assistants to the president clean up and do some office work, getting all the stuff ready for those who are going home. It was interesting, all the office missionaries sit in this little room, which Im in now because its free and close enough to the house. After we helped them, the assistants took us to our house, because we live with them right, they call it ¨the enchanted beach house¨ its what I have been praying for. It is sooooo nice, in comparison to my last house, and I guess to all the other houses in the mission, because its the most expensive one. Its got two stories and hot water, wood floors so it doesnt get cold when we wake up. A big fridge and best of all.... a Couch! yes a couch. My room mates are super clean which makes me so happy. The spirit can deffinitly dwell in this abode. It is just great all around. We play a good 10 minutes of Uno at the end of everyday with the assistants and its just great. Our area, yes yes, the area of Carrasco C. 
We live right in front of the beach and we are surrounded by millionaires. With big metal gates and people who work in the different embassies that are also in our area. Its hard, the people are hard, but we went out to work and found some really great people. The ward is cool, from what I can tell, there are bunches of american families, that work in the embassy that are in our ward. Like the family china. We went to their house yesterday for dinner, oh to have american food. Of course they had a big metal gate and electric fences but once you got inside it was like stepping back into the states. honda odessey, a mud-room, a living room, with couches, and cool-ranch doritos, pizza, and jello for dinner. All their Kids dont speak spanish it was so weird, to speak in english to a family again. I almost didnt know how to say stuff. This week was really weird, in terms of p day and stuff, because yesterday the assistants had p day, and because we had a zone conference during p day yesterday we are writing today during lunch, but usually its saturday. Yes yes, we have presidents permission for all of this and stuff, the assistants have a crazy schedule and we just have p day with them because we live with them in the same house. 
But yesterday, we had our preparation, we bought groceries, from the super market, with trolleys and everything, and we went in the CAR to the other side of the city of Montevideo, we drove along the Rambla, which is the street that runs along the beach, and drove right past the hotel that the High school americans stayed in when we were down here, we saw the beach we ran on and everything. Super weird. But we went to this market thing, really really nice market place, and we were all broke missionaries so we didnt buy much, except lunch, which was churipan, which is a sausage on a bread bun. Like sausage sizzle almost, with the poppy kinda sausage that cracks when you bite it. It was really expensive, that and water and ¨grilled cheese¨ which is just that, just a big block of grilled mozerella cheese with garlic in it. Sounds gross, but it was really really good. Then we drove by the cathedral that we visited last year with the HSAA, calvin can probably remember. But yes yes, When I got to the area, I was kinda upset at my companion and the assistants, because of the state of their area, we share the area with the assistants, because they never work, lazy bums. They didnt have their white board filled in with all the members less active and investigators, and didnt have the list of the actions of the bishopric. Which is essential, because it has all the people from ages 9 to 18 who are in member families who were never baptized. Its a gold mine. So I talked to the ward mission leader and he said that he was working on it. 
And this sunday, which is fast sunday, I will get to participate in something called ¨break the fast¨ Ive never heard of something like this before. All the temple missionaries and temple workers, like 1 hour after church bring a bunch of food and dessserts to share, and the missionaries are always invited, only if we get investigators to come. Its good, becuase usually we just eat lunch at the house of a member, but this way we can talk missionary work with all the members, and get people in the church with members. It will be hard this change, but having a good companion like elder England and a clean, organized, spiritual house like the one we have now will help a bunch. 

Long email but it was a good week. And I weighed myself, still a solid 183 lbs. 

Elder Webber

Moving to a Second Area

Muchos gracias for the package! the ties are cool and all the food is needed and appreciated.  I got a letter from the offices that said my other package was stuck in customs so I signed a paper and it should be coming any week now. And thanks mom for the recipes. So yes, we did indeed move houses, the new house is awesome, but its not really important because we got the changes yesterday and Im going tooooo...... Montevideo! Our old house was one of the worst in the mission and now I´m going to live with the assistants to the president in one of the nicest. Elder England will be my companion tomorrow. Last p day we went to this little shack to buy food and we bought bauru. Its a kind of brazilian hamburger thing. With the lot. All the vegies and eggs and what not. real good. We had our zone meeting with president and the interviews, which was fun. We had a few family home evenings, noche de hogars, this week. Played uno, which gets really intense down here. This week was kinda hard, mostly because it was ¨holy week¨and everybody was out on vacations or worshiping their saints. Which was hard to have patience, we just want to bajar la caña, drop the cane, on those catholics who don't know what they believe. Besides that not much is happening. good bye my first area, kinda happy to go, but I´ll miss some of the members here for sure, and some of my conversos.  I´ll include a photo of me and my companion, elder rodriguez with this sign we found, that translates into, ¨don't put trash here you dirty hobos¨ But sounds all good at home. Hows all the boys and mariah doing? Benji is preparing huh, yup yup, thats pretty crazy, and I sent a letter to Joseph and one to mariah, let me know if you get them. 

Elder Webber

Doing Well and Moving house

I got your package today. That was awesome, especially all the cliff bars and food. We (the four elders in our house) spent a good 30 minutes going through all the fotos and trunking in general. Gooooood stuff. Entonces muchos gracias. and thanks aaron for the music and pictures and stuff. We talked with a member who thinks he knows all the geography of the book of mormon, he said that the natives who were here when the first explorers came over, lived in a place called teancum, which is in the book of mormon, one of the only cities with walls that was built along the sea shore, pronounced, tancoom here. Which sounds similar and he says that they confused what the natives were saying and understood ¨cancun¨ hes cool, and he has some interesting ideas. I was just reminded about that when you guys were talking about your cruise. We work alot with our bishop, hes really on board with the obra misional. We had more intercambios this week, and I went with Elder Arnet, we visited a familia whose puppy died so we helped them dig a hole and bury it. It was sad. There is a general authority named Cornish? who looks crazy similar to Mr. Cornish who was the computer teacher in elementary school. Relative? Our baptism fell through, again, for the third week. Its frustrating and we want to baptize him before changes which are this next week. We also have a familia sosa who have 3 daughters who are teenagers and we are praying and fasting that they get baptized this week as well. They all have sufficient knowledge and assistance in the church. I sent a bunch of letters home a few weeks ago, let me know if you guys get them. I could use a cheesecake recipe, maybe and carmel corn recipe, maybe socks if you´re going to send a package in the coming year. We had some ¨house rings¨made they are pretty cool. Just a plain metal ring with the baptism symbol engraved in it. You´ll have to ask aaron and josh how that is. I´m not sure if you (pops) used the same symbol back in your day. Anyways, we have interviews with president this week, and we are finally moving houses! So we spent a few hours today packing everything, which wasn´t much, and cleaning the house. We´re pretty excited. Our house is really good, really obedient and we wake up at 615 to run over to the church and do excersises together. But anyways, that´s about it. Thanks bunches.